Wow! It’s been awhile since I’ve been here … in this writing place. A lot has transpired. Learning, growing, expanding, changing, making adjustments and course corrections. But above all, loving Jesus and knowing Him more deeply has only increased so I’m going to “talk it out”.

“Talk it out” is a phrase my business partner and I have coined for communication purposes. It’s neutral ground. It’s the place where we understand that we may not say exactly what we want to express or want to put out, but we’re searching and bouncing off one another till we reach that place where we have successfully communicated what it is we’re needing to communicate … Are you able to capture the essence of this phrase? Hopefully, yes, cause that’s what I’m gonna do for a bit. I’m gonna “talk out” over these next many chapters why I love Jesus, why I love my God so much; why He is so precious to me; why He means everything to me; why I’m so thankful for His presence in me, in my life.

I have a somewhere I’m going in all this. The igniting force, the compelling passion, the power that’s driving this expression is this intensive yearning to love and know Him more. In exploring, in “talking it out” I’m looking for this love to surge, to escalate, to mushroom into proportions I can’t even dream or imagine. I know it’s BIG! I want this expression to be volatile; to stir up, provoke and encourage me, and those who read this book … bouncing off these words, to know and love Jesus more … I’m here to incite a riot in myself and others in the LOVE OF GOD!

“… Oh, thank you, God!” I keep hearing of the love and faith you have for the Master Jesus, which brims over to other believers. And I keep praying that this faith we hold in common keeps showing up in the good things we do, and that people recognize Christ in all of it. Friend, you have no idea how good your love makes me feel, doubly so when I see your hospitality to fellow believers. PHILEMON 1:4-7 MSG

Contrary to what I thought I’d been doing … a lot of writing, I’m actually reading, and reading a lot. This is a change for me. I read, but sitting down to read a book has not been a what I’d call a passionate pastime of mine 🙂 I now have about 7 books going at the same time 🙂

I just finished reading a compilation of stories of children and young adults who participated in the phenomenal happenings that occurred during the Los Angeles Azusa Street Revival in the early 1900s. It left me hungering to experience times like these myself.

Not only was there account after account of amazing healings and miracles, but documented supernatural occurrences … flames of fire reported over and over again shooting up from the building and flames coming down from heaven to meet together, yet the firemen unable to locate its source. The misty cloud filling the interior of the auditorium, seeming to increase the number and degree of miracles, was always endearingly narrated as similar to breathing pure oxygen … like a bit of heaven had come to sit down in the midst of them. Now that sounds good.

Also … been doing a lot of praying. It seems a REALLY good time for doing a lot of this in the Spirit … praying out God’s plans in these languages that the Spirit gives us … cause we certainly don’t know how to pray it out in our understanding. Not for this … all way out beyond our understanding.

I know “the times – they are a-changin'”. Something big is coming to a boil on this earth. Percolation. Brewing of something stupendous by our God!

I’m saying, “Use me Lord to pray out your plans. I come boldly to the Throne of Grace to receive more mercy and grace than ever before to help me walk out everything You’ve made me to be and called me to do. I believe I’ll take it all. I’ve got it. Thank You, and I forgive and love as You’ve so mercifully forgiven and love me. All in Jesus name.”

ROMANS 8:26 So too the [Holy] Spirit comes to our aid and bears us up in our weakness; for we do not know what prayer to offer nor how to offer it worthily as we ought, but the Spirit Himself goes to meet our supplication and pleads in our behalf with unspeakable yearnings and groanings too deep for utterance. AMP

My favorite place is in the “now”. I like to be doing it, not so much necessarily talking about what to do, or what I wanna do … unless I know we’re going someplace with it … whatever “it” is at that particular time and place.

It’s been that way about our Heaven Home.

Thought I do love hearing about heaven, reading stories of people who’ve died, gone to heaven and come back, or those who’ve had visions of heaven, its not something I go out of my way to pursue.

I have close family in heaven. I’m very aware of their presence there. I have no fear or doubt of its existence or our place there, BUT, about moving there, or Jesus coming to take us, His Body, home to Heaven … not so much in my thought life … UNTIL RECENTLY!

It was not a “here and now” concept. That’s changed drastically over the last few months, and even the last few weeks.

I’m saying, “I’m not wanting to escape this place, like run away. I know You have things for me to do here. You have plans and purposes for each of us, and ways to pursue them. But, I want to thank You for waking me more and more to this stunning and much more vibrant realty … the KNOWING we’re really headed to an awesome, magnificent forever with You. You’re creating in me this increased expectancy of some REALLY supernatural happenings … “signs and wonders”, miraculous occurrences, miraculous healings … all that kinda stuff. You REALLY LOVE THE WORLD, and You want to show off Your Power and Love to them … through me, through us – Your children, so everyone will be ready. I yield myself to You, and I’m asking for Your help to do it better and better every day. Thank You. I believe I’ll take it. I have it, and I WILL to forgive and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

1 JOHN 3:2-3 My dear friends, we are already God’s children, though what we will be hasn’t yet been seen. But we do know that when Christ returns, we will be like him, because we will see him as he truly is. This hope makes us keep ourselves holy, just as Christ is holy. CEV

TITUS 2:11-14 God has shown us how kind he is by coming to save all people. He taught us to give up our wicked ways and our worldly desires and to live decent and honest lives in this world. We are filled with hope, as we wait for the glorious return of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ. He gave himself to rescue us from everything that is evil and to make our hearts pure. He wanted us to be his own people and to be eager to do right. CEV

Resolutely desirous of change I latched onto the following as I was reading something by Kenneth E Hagin. He was encouraging the reader to begin confessing the love scriptures from 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 over them-self morning and evening for a certain amount of time (think it was for 30 days). That in doing so they would see a change for the better 🙂

This was a few months ago. I immediately programmed my phone calendar to remind me everyday at a certain time in the morning and again in the evening to speak these verses over myself. I included a memo on my calendar with a quote of the verses so they’d be right at my fingertips no matter where I was. Because I’m a love child of a love God, I replaced “love” with “I” to confess it over myself.

A couple of weeks ago, the person leading our Wednesday night church prayer meeting shared how he’s been confessing these same love verses over himself. Something he said triggered me to change “I”, so it was not referring to myself but to God … as if He were telling me who He was.

Because He’s in me and I’m in Him, a conspicuous perception … a solid identification with Him began exploding. It was like I was more and more, day by day, being baptized … submerged into who He really is, and who I really am in Him. It was very good.

This last week the same person was leading prayer and encouraged us again, sharing how dramatically this confession of love was effecting him. That evening before going to bed I was inspired to change the confession to “my Daddy and me”. POW! The Glory kicked in. Now it’s intimate. “My Daddy and me, we are …”!

I’m saying, “What an awesomely outrageous Person You are. There is no end in sight of experiencing, perceiving, reveling in this dimensionless ocean of Your Love … of Who You are. Thank You for loving me beyond what I can even begin to fathom. Thank You for giving me all of eternity to know You, to be loved by You, and to begin to really love You. Thank You. Thank You. Thank You, and I WILL to forgive and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so very Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

I CORINTHIANS 13:4-8 “My Daddy and me, we are” …Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails. NIV

One flashlight step at a time – that’s usually what change looks like to me. It’s flowing with the Spirit of God not knowing where this flashlight step may lead.

This step … the first step in this time and space … I will be breaking away from writing this blog every day, Monday through Friday. I say breaking away as it’s almost an addiction … a loving duty … a compelling outlet that I’ve known for almost 2 years. But I do know that inner nudge, and I want to be obedient to the Lord.

I believe one of the first things I’ll be doing is editing/re-writing my first blog experience … reflecting on one of the more dramatic segments of my life – “in search of love”. Hopefully I’ll be doing a lot more writing of all sorts as I do so love this medium. I only recently discovered this passion late into my 65 years of life.

I’ll also be back here to write – more better :), more focused, more Spirit-led, and in Jesus name … more powerful.

I’m saying, “My most wonderful Shepherd, I’m here at the Throne of Your Grace, asking for a whole lot of mercy and grace to help me walk out the steps You’re showing me. Thank You for faithfully leading me by still waters and green pastures … always bringing refreshing to my soul, always making things better and better. Thank You for leading me on the Right path so I’m always in the Right place with the Right people doing the Right thing at the Right time. By Your Spirit in me I KNOW I will always KNOW when to write, what to write and where to write. Thank You, and I pray the same for each reader … that they will always be on the Right path at the Right place with the Right people doing the Right thing at the Right time … and doing it Right. Thank You, and I WILL to forgive and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

Caricature of me … small body, big head and an even bigger question mark propped above me indicating I don’t know what to do … a dilemma, a conflict, a challenge … demanding a resolve.

Sometimes I find the question mark following me around like a shadow. If it stays unanswered long enough I even forget it’s there … a straggling, undernourished, neglected question mark.

This produces angst because there is now a lingering nagging sense of something forgotten … and, “what was that thing anyway?” So now instead of just a question, it’s a worry … a care, a weight.

This was a way of life for me. Thankfully, these last few years I’ve had breakthroughs. Now, I’m so much quicker to get to God, lay it before Him, ask Him for His wisdom, and believe right then that I’ve got the answer and begin to thank Him.

Every time the question pops up and I still don’t SEE the answer, the way, the wisdom, I just start all over again, not re-asking, but thanking Him that I’ve got the answer … “It’s mine and I’m just thanking You that I know”.

PHILIPPIANS 4:6-7 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done.Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. NLT

1 THESSALONIANS 5:18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

I’m saying, “Thank You that I no longer have to walk around in a fog. I’ve got the Greater One in me and You’ve got all the illumination I need. I may not see it right away, but I know if I ask and then continue with thanksgiving and give You opportunity to enlighten me, You will. Thank You.

I WILL to forgiven and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

This freedom has grown exponentially as I’ve surrendered to the Chief Surgeon’s knife – The Word of God, the Sword of the Spirit, the Bible … and let it penetrate, divide, discern, expose, sift analyze, judge the thoughts and purposes of my heart.

It used to be when I was reading, or someone was teaching or preaching out of the Bible, and it went crosswise with my thinking or way of life, and demanded a change in action or attitude I would recoil, run, resist, or outright refuse.

I was a grateful child, but demanded to be coddled while corrected.

As I’m maturing … at least in my thinking 🙂 … I actually look for the clean sweep of that knife as it cuts away the useless, the unproductive, the unnecessary, that which works at counter-purposes to Love.

I’m saying, “I’m choosing to forget the wasted years of resisting You, of being slow to mature because I refused to let Your Word clean me up. I like this child-like mentality of my Daddy knows best, and what You say goes. I’ll no longer put up with status quo, fearing to rock the boat of my life. Let ‘er rock! I’m looking to grow up. I love that You see all and know all. It makes living with You so clean, so honest, so pure, so refreshing. I’m asking for more mercy and grace to help me desire this more fervently than ever before. I believe and take it. I have it. I thank You, and I WILL to forgive and love as You’ve forgiven and love me … so Mercifully. All in Jesus name.”

HEBREWS 4:12-13 For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, naked and defenseless to the eyes of Him with Whom we have to do. AMP